What did you do in KSP1 today?

[NecroBones]

Put together some large vacuum engines.

5m and 7.5m clusters, respectively:

[RocketscientistV]

I struck gold in the tracking station in a fresh save, I was heading to the mun but it will have to wait for an asteroid recovery.

[HafCoJoe]

I... I'm sorry to break it to you guys but I just performed my first F5 update refresh... It's happening soon I swear!

[Kuansenhama]

Launched the Duna And Ike Planetary Eploration and Reconissance mission. Better known as DAIPER.

[Goddess Bhavani]

KerbalWagen Type 2 Bus / Amphibious Assault barge, original landing craft design by castille7. Spent 3 hours on craft testing, re-engineering and improving fit and finish to customary precision standards.

The ramp drops away and the vehicle drives off onto the beach like Jeremy Clarkson's Ford Fiesta in a Royal Marines beach assault exercise

The Kerbalwagen project team / fans have several variants in the works, including Mad Rocket Scientist's hovervan, BlueCanary's Mad Max version, and even an ice cream truck all showcased in the craft thread.

[DocMoriarty]

I

- rescued a kerbal from Kerbin orbit with a shuttle doing a test for the "Dawn" engine ATST

- rescued a kerbal and his trash from a low Mun orbit with a lifter/lander called spider and brought back to Kerbin

- rescued a kerbal and his trash from a high Minmus orbit with a trainings-roundtrip-shuttle-thingamabob that wasn't really intended for this but was nearby, now the craft is on its way to the last step of the roundtrip - an orbit around the sun to make all Kerbals in it 3-star-kerbals

- continued to refuel an asteroid mining and moving barge in orbit around Minmus for it's first asteroid intercept mission, still one more roundtrip for the tanker from Minmus to barge to fill it up

- planted a flag on Duna, did some research there

- sent back 450 research from Duna station

[Geschosskopf]

Actually, this was a day or 2 ago but was the last thing I've done in KSC due to RL. Anyway, I launched a ship called ABJECT FAILURE (Amazingly Big Jool Expeditionary Cryogenic Transport For Attaining Increased Learning Upon Return from Exoplanets). Coming up with the name took longer than designing the ship .

[Belphegor]

was about to do some contracts when i noticed over half of my kerbals were still on the moon for training and science.. with no way of getting them off, their lander was short on fuel. and i forgot i was supposed to leave the science bay on the moon in order to make a safe re-entry but i launched it with 2 kerbals inside and 3 more in the command pod..

i saw this as a good chance to test a prototype lander with mining gear that i'm going to use on a duna mission (but with re-fitted fuel and engines more suited to conditions on the moon). the flight went well despite being a bit tight on fuel on the last stage so i had to complete orbit around the mun with the lander itself and eventually landed with only 80Dv left. now Valentina, Bob, and 3 other guys have 2 fully fueled exit vehicles to return when that (very very slow) science bay finally runs out of data

something really nice happened there too when i warped a bit during the mining.. everything stopped working, i clicked the solar panels and they said 'blocked by kerbin'. only then i noticed this sweet eclipse going on right above me

[Mikki]

Launched a new interplanetary ship, a truely kerbal vessel:

(Space Shuttle Engines Mod, Atomic Age Mod... )

...and Bob watched a eclipse

[Mister Kerman]

I'd say your mistake is using docking mode. . . . . don't, it's pointless. Granted the last time I tried it was probably about 10 versions of KSP ago but the fact remains that I never use it and just control RCS in normal flight mode.

Press R to turn on RCS, controls are then:

H - Translate Forward

N - Translate Backward

J/L - Translate Left / Right

I/K - Translate Up / Down

AFAIK these are the default controls, I certainly haven't changed them.

If you wanna just deorbit, aim you ship retrograde (orbit), press R and then hold down H.

The ship will automatically fire the correct RCS nozzles to head in the direction intended, if you only have 2x 4-way blocks chances are at least some of those 8 nozzles are pointed the right way to achieve the desired effect, if not try rotating the ship around a bit. As a rule of thumb for future designs I always try and have RCS blocks in four-fold radial symmetry somewhere close to the CoM.

I had 2 4-way RCS blocks. It should have worked. Even distribution of weight on all sides, one 4-way on the top, one 4-way on the bottom. I don't know why it didn't work because like you said, I planned ahead and 2 4-ways ought to be enough to perform any docking maneuver. 2 parallel jets on the top and bottom of the craft, performing pitch/translate forward/translate backward, and 2 perpendicular jets on the top and bottom of the craft, performing roll/translate left/translate right. The only thing I can't do specifically with RCS is yaw rotation, but that can be easily done with my reaction wheels.

I know all about RCS, that's why I'm confused. I don't mess around with planes much, and my landers/rockets generally have 4 radially attached RCS 4-way blocks. I'm not sure if it was a quirk of the game because it was a plane launched from the SPH, or if 2 blocks literally can't do certain maneuvers with KSP's user input AI or whatever you'd like to call it. As I said though, I took precautions to make sure the configuration could handle any maneuver I thought I'd need. 2 ought to do it. :[

If anyone has a clue, could they fill me in? The RCS worked great for rotation (Except my intentional neglect of yaw rotation, mentioned before.)

I might make a thread in the questions part of the forum. I feel like I'm cluttering this one with my posts :S

EDIT: I'll try again without docking mode. IKJLHN might be my new best friends. Maybe it was a bug with the actual modes.

Double edit:

If you don't see any exhaust from the RCS ports while trying to move forwards, your keys aren't correctly configured. Make sure your keys for docking mode are the same ones as the ones in "normal" staging mode in the key bindings menu. This happens to me quite a lot actually version updates or game restarts have a tendency to reset your keybindings.

I'll double check my keys. I've already docked other things fine in 1.04, so I'm not too optimistic about this. I hope that's the case. Also sorry Cirocco, can't give you rep right now for that. Spread too much of it around today already.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Mister Kerman

[TimePeriod]

I made a fully functional SSTO with no cargo capa- capaci - capacity?(Swedish and English don't mix) anyway, my SSTO got into space in a stable 70km orbit and didn't even catch fire.

To be fair, it is not a jet fighter at all. It turns very sluggish, lands like a soggy bread on tin foil and has a very limited payload but...but but but!

It gets into orbit!

[ShawnPhillips]

Just having some fun with BD armory.

[RocketPilot573]

Testing the cargo ramp/door in flight.

[Mat2ch]

I, uhm, landed a MK2 cargo bay on Eve... everything was meant to burn up, the cargo bay seems to be stubborn...

[hazard-ish]

In order to prepare for extensive interplanetary SSTO missions of the future, I've started constructing a mining station/colony. Each delivery will be brought up using SSTOs and will consist of many various modules.

In this part: A habitation module, a drilling unit and an ore container were hauled up (a total mass of about 40 tonnes) using one of the largest SSTOs I've ever built.

Hope you enjoy

[selfish_meme]

Made a stock VTOL SSTO for Kerbin, which is fun to fly

[Jouni]

I returned to my 1.0.x career mode game after a long time. The next mission is supposed to be Laythe exploration, but I don't have the parts to build a reasonable plane to land there. I therefore decided to build a replica of my 0.23 Laythe lander.

The basic design still works, even though I had to add a third jet engine. The lander completed my standard Laythe simulation (launch on a rocket, deorbit, and return back to LKO) without any problems, so I'll probably use something like this for the mission.

[Alphasus]

I watched my game crash repeatedly on launch:(

[Fearless Son]

As a rule of thumb for future designs I always try and have RCS blocks in four-fold radial symmetry somewhere close to the CoM.

This is totally true for the "block" style quad thrusters, but for the streamlined thrusters (which you might want for aerodynamic or aesthetic reasons) I find it best to shift them as far from the center of mass as possible, but place them in matching sets balanced across the center of mass. That way you maximize the leverage their thrust can use when turning the craft around, while also allowing them to thrust laterally. As long as you have a few surfaces so you can place them facing backward and forward as well, and you have all your directions covered.

[-M-TheDoctor]

TheDoctor;2156176']I finally got a rover on the Mun in one piece! The launch included a navigation satellite for the rover. (It has a mechjeb on it' date=' so I use the landing assist to identify target biomes). So far my career has been going well.[/quote']

MY ROVER FELL DOWN A CLIFF AND CRASHED!!!!! i WAS DRIVING TO THE FIRST SITE!!!! i WAS SO CLOSE!!! ;.;;.;;.;

[wolfman29]

After a week of setup, today I finally set out on my permanent space station/mothership expedition. The station has enough fuel and engines to give it a measly 0.65 m/s^2 when fully fueled, but has enough fuel to take it anywhere in the system and back to Kerbal orbit without refueling. Further, the space station comes equipped with 16 nukes for propulsion, a spare nuke (just in case!), two docking tugs (redundancy and balance!) along with their own dedicated slot, a rendezvous tug (used for moving large payload crafts >50t near the space station from a separate orbit), and a lander/refueling station, which has the capability to land and return to orbit on any body in the Kerbol system (with the exception of Eve!) while hauling 15t of ore.

Because this is an all-or-nothing style mission, I decided to take a trip to the Mun and make my first temporary home there. After 12 or so burns to get into a 17km orbit about Mun, I sent down my refueling lander. I need to return about 60k units of fuel - which is a lot! If my math is correct, that's about 20 trips to and from the station. I should be able to cut back on the amount of trips, though, by filling up the tanks while I am on the surface. Because it doesn't take much to orbit Mun, I might be able to cut it down to around 5 or so trips. I guess we'll find out!

Anyway, here are a few pictures.

Here is my station (with the lander detached).

Here is my lander! It's happily chugging along!

Edited August 26, 2015 by wolfman29

[KerBlammo]

Sent my orbital ore refinery and drilling lander on a trajectory to Minimus using an orbital tug.

[Mister Kerman]

My friends. I have placed my first MK2 size SSTO with an empty cargo bay into a 100k-ish circular orbit. I even have a little oxidizer left for de orbit, and tons of mono propellant in case I run out. It's a little fancy for my tastes but I think it's alright.

Bottom

Vanity

Once again critiquing always welcome. I still need to improve the design to be able to place those far flung satellites into their weird orbits around Kerbin, but this is the closest I've ever been to a locally green space program! Very excited.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Mister Kerman

[FastMINI42]

I was having all kinds of issues with my Explorer series lander. I can't hit the broadside of a crater from orbit, plus the thing was way too tippy. Setting down on a gentle slope was a recipe for disaster. I wanted to add a rover, but I didn't know how to do that without a complete re-design to account for an off balance load, etc.

I decided to do the only logical thing: Kick it over in the VAB and add wheels. That way it's already fallen over, and I don't need a rover because it is one. And when I miss the next landing site, i can just drive a few hundred kilometers to where I was supposed to be. Next step is to figure out how to get the thing on a rocket and out of the atmosphere and do a few tests with a full crew (all my Kerbals are on missions, Elus got left behind somehow).

Introducing the Sojourner series Landerover:

Plenty of Science and science storage:

Got up to 20m/s on the runway before getting nervous and slowing down. Also found out solar panels fall off at 10m/s:

Edited August 26, 2015 by FastMINI42

[DunaRocketeer]

First time back in KSP for a while, and I'm getting used to Duna's new atmosphere (drogues don't slow stuff down early as effectively as they used to). It's going to be interesting trying to take an old design down to the surface and back up again.